


Sunglow

by Twinflame



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-02-26 04:42:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2638472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twinflame/pseuds/Twinflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Overwatch rescues Amelie Lacroix from Talon, Angela Ziegler has trouble believing that she really is okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Stand Still

Running her palm over the charts on her clipboard as though smoothing out creases in the paper, Angela exhaled. Long and slow, warm breath pushing her blond bangs from her eyes, she let her eyes close simply stood there in the hallway. She let things be still, the pristine hallways of the Overwatch research facility a sanctum of peace for a corporation that was otherwise all weapons, tactics, battles and casualties. All words that doctor Angela Ziegler hated.

Not words she would confront today. She opened her eyes and looked over the charts again. Amelie Lacroix was not a casualty. The woman was uninjured and psychologically sound, at least by the numbers. If only Angela could convince herself to trust them, to believe that Amelie was as okay as she seemed. That she was not a casualty.

Angela’s eyes narrowed, and she glared at her hands. “Oh, stop stalling.” She stepped forward and pushed open the door. With her very first step into the small room, she was inside of Amelie Lacroix’s substantial personal space.

The tall, thin French woman looked up, sunglow eyes wide and round like child’s, nose small, jaw sharp and lips full. Her face was a healthy pink, her dark hair gleaming in the sunlight through the window. Amelie stood without weakness or hesitation. “Doctor Ziegler.”

Amgela smiled. “Hello, Amelie. How are you feeling today?”

“I feel fine.” Amelie’s eyes flicked to the side, and then she shrugged. Her lips curled upward, brows rising. “I feel fine. Just like yesterday, and the day before.”

The woman’s light voice brushed between Angela’s ribs, loosening the stressed muscles in her chest and back, softening her heart. Maybe she was wrong to worry. Angela’s smile came a measure easier. “Well, you finally have me convinced. I think it’s time for you to go home and see Gerard again.”

Amelie hummed and looked down at herself. She straightened the white, button-up shirt she wore over plain gray slacks. “Do you think I’m dressed well enough to see my husband again?”

“I think you’re beautiful.” That came out a bit easier than Angela had expected it to, but she just chuckled at herself. “He’s your husband. All he wants is for you to be healthy and happy. That’s all any of us want.”

“I’m healthy and happy.” Amelie nodded, as if this required additional confirmation. “When can I go?”

“Immediately, if you want.”

“I wouldn’t want you to think that I was simply fleeing the hospital. I appreciate you taking care of me. Even if you’ve been doing it a few days longer than planned.”

“Amelie.” Angela shook her head, golden hair swinging about her face like curtains decorating a painting. “You should run from me. Run back to your husband as quickly and desperately as you can.”

Humming again, this time a neutral sound instead of a happy one, Amelie turned to look out the window. “Yes. I suppose I should.” She adjusted the buttons on the cuffs of her sleeves.

Angela crossed her arms and hugged the clipboard to her chest. She watched Amelie, the way the woman’s very long, thin hair hung well past her waist, the way her thin form stood perfect as a monument framed by the sunlight, the sharp angles of her neck and jaw, her cheeks and eyebrows. Thin fingers moved over buttons, unfastening and fastening, turning them. Amelie plucked at the wrinkles in her shirt where it was tucked into her slacks, trying to get it to hang just so.

Eyes closing, Angela sighed again. She found no stillness here, though. Amelie’s presence pushed up against her awareness and the clipboard seemed heavy in her hands. Angela opened her eyes, looked over her patient’s legs and the arch of her back, her muscled shoulders. Her patient. Someone she was meant to take care of. Angela gathered her breath only to speak very softly, “Amelie.”

Sunglow eyes turned. “Hm?”

“Are you sure that you’re okay?” Angela’s hands tightened on her clipboard until her knuckles turned white. She could feel her brow wrinkling in discomfort but couldn’t stop it. “You don’t need to tell us what happened if you don’t want to, just to tell us that you need help.”

“Doctor Ziegler.” Amelie groaned in a friendly, charmed sort of way, smiling that smile that softened Angela’s heart, but this time it didn’t bring any comfort. “Talon didn’t do anything to me. I’m fine. I just wish I had some nicer clothes or time for a haircut.”

Angela set her clipboard aside and walked across the small room, heals clicking on the floor, white coat shuffing around her legs. “Let me see.” She stepped behind Amelie and bundled the woman’s long hair in her hands.

Amelie did not object, though she stood a bit bewildered. “Doctor Ziegler, why are you taking such care of me?”

“Because I’m a doctor.” Angela reached up to her own hair, plucking the tie that held her ponytail in place. Her golden her fell in a disordered pile, and she shook it out behind her head. Then she used the tie to do up the taller womans much darker, much longer hair.

“You’re also a member of Overwatch, aren’t you? Mercy?”

Angela paused, exhaling. “Yes.” Her fingers lingered in Amelie’s hair, the ponytail half-done. “The thing is. Overwatch uses force. And I’m… Well, I’m not quite a pacifist. But let’s say that I don’t agree with making violence one’s modus operandi.”

“Then why join Overwatch?”

“To help people. To save lives.” Angela noticed her fingertips were curling against Amelie’s skin at the woman’s hairline, petting downward along the tendons there. But Amelie hadn’t complained. Angela lifted her fingers and ran them down the woman’s neck again, experimenting with the maternal gesture. It made her feel warm to touch Amelie like that. She ran her fingers slowly over the woman’s skin, over the lithe, powerful muscles on the woman’s neck, and she noticed that Amelie’s shoulders relaxed and the woman’s breath slowed. Angela ran her hand down the woman’s neck and between her shoulderblades. Still no complaint, as Angela pressed her fingertips on either side of Amelie’s spine and moved them back up, wrinkling her shirt.

Amelie sighed, leaning slightly into the touch. The gesture was so slight it was almost unnoticeable.

But it was noticeable. Angela inhaled sharply and moved her hands back to Amelie’s hair, face red. “I tolerate Overwatch so that I can help more people. You didn’t deserve to be taken by Talon. I’m here to take care of you.” She tied off Amelie’s new ponytail and eased backwad. “Done.”

Amelie turned around as Angela stepped away, so fast that for a moment there was less than half a meter between their faces. Amelie’s features were wide and pink, mouth slightly open, sunglow eyes gleaming. Angela completed her step, however, almost pushed back by some pressure between them. The tall woman’s long arms swung behind her and she joined her hands there. “Thank you. Doctor.” She blinked, pondered. “Ange-…” She shook her head. “Doctor Ziegler. Thank you.”

Angela felt herself smiling, but her cheeks were numb.

“I should go home, now.” Amelie stepped sideways and spun. As her sunglow eyes turned away, her dark hair arched behind her like a flash of nightfall. She took a nightbag in one hand — she’d accrued very few belongings during her week in Angela’s care — and long legs swung in great strides, getting her to the door in an instant. She opened it and paused. “Bonsoir.”

“Goodbye.” Angela began, speaking in a distracted sort of half-murmur. “I’m going to check on you soon.”

Amelie looked over her shoulder, a flash of sunglow through the night of her hair. “I’ll… Okay. Thank you.” She smiled, and she was gone. The door clicked shut behind her.

Angela collapsed onto a chair in the corner, leaning forward as though her head was suddenly very heavy. Her ever-unruly hair fell over her features, shrouding her in a wash of gold. “Amelie, please be okay.”


	2. Falling from the Sun

Angela Ziegler watched the sun through the window of her office seemingly without end for two days. Her desk collected reports from her assistants and the other researchers. She half-remembered reading through some portion of them, answering a few phone calls and emails, but she’d done that in a daze. Angela did not have to retreat into the long, white hallways with eyes closed to achieve stillness and peace anymore. Though her thoughts and heart had been a rushing storm for most of the past week, two days ago, she had been shocked still by eyes of sunlight, and Angela had been still ever since. Quiet. Staring at the sunlight through the windows.

The world was still around her. No calls of violence came to Overwatch. She knew the other members were out on patrols, on investigations, as if they were looking for trouble. But Angela Ziegler sat still in the midst of the stillness. What was the world waiting for? What was she waiting for? What was going to happen?

The was a knock on her open door.

Angela turned her absent gaze that way slowly, and then she saw Amelie Lacroix’s sunglow eyes and snapped awake. Sitting forward, Angela coughed the name, “Amelie,” and went to lean on her desk. Her elbows and arms met with stacks of paperwork, however, the piles seeming to have tripled in size since she’d last noticed them. Stunned into confusion by them, Angela only belatedly noticed that one of the stacks was toppling, and she stood to catch it too late, groaning as she reached for the paperwork that slid from her desk and spun into the open air.

Amelie Lacroix had tried to catch the pile as well. The woman’s black hair was bundled up into a high ponytail, just like Angela had done it up in, and the woman was still wearing a plain combination of slacks and button-up shirt, but this time her wrist clattered with the sound of metal bracelets and a necklace clicked about on her neck. She failed to catch the paperwork, and ended up on her knees in a pile of unsorted reports and memos.

“Oh, Amelie!” Angela pressed her hands over her mouth. “I’m sorry. I was dozing.”

“Désolé. I didn’t mean to surprise you.” Amelie’s sunglow eyes looked over the paperwork in front of her. She picked up a few pages and appeared vexed as she could not immediately relate one page to the next. Of course not. They were completely disorganized now. “I hope I didn’t ruin anything.”

“Not your fault. Don’t worry.” Angela pushed her chair out from behind her. Her white coat lay over the back of the chair, but the white dress Angela wore was not very different, collared and buttoned down the front, hanging well past her knees. “Just leave it. It will force me to read through it all anyway.”

Amelie frowned, her narrow brows leaning towards one another as she looked at page after page. “I really didn’t mean to make a mess… Merde. I should’ve just called.” The woman moved the paperwork around her into small piles without really organizing them.

“No, I’m glad you’re here.” Angela put a hand on Amelie’s shoulder.

The thin woman stopped, her eyes turning on the hand that touched her. Angela almost felt the warmth of sunlight moving over her skin as Amelie’s gaze followed Angela’s arm to her face. Amelie’s lips parted to speak, but she made no sound. Then her jaw screwed shut and she exhaled in frustration, turning her eyes away. Lines of concern drew over her brow and her cheeks reddened, one dipping inward and dimpling as she bit it. Finally, she left the paperwork alone and stood, her body unfurling from its bent posture, legs straightening, until she was looking down on Angela while the doctor’s hand slid slowly off her shoulder and down her arm.

Angela’s pink lips closed tight and shifted. She stared at the stray strands of dark hair hanging over Amelie’s face.

Amelie looked at where Angela’s hand rested on her arm, and then back to the doctor’s blue eyes. “Doctor Ziegler?”

“Ah.” Angela withdrew her hand and was informed by her aching lower lip that she’d been biting it. She brushed at her face in some misguided attempt to conceal the gesture. “I’m sorry. I was distracted by thoughts of research.”

“If you’re busy I can-”

“No, Amelie.” Angela put her fingertips on Amelie’s arm again. Why did she keep touching her? Angela tried to put her hands in her pockets, but she wasn’t wearing her coat, so she just ended up patting her thighs awkwardly. “I was… hmm… I was going to check in on you tomorrow. Why are you…?” Her nervous gestures paused, and she gave Amelie a very serious look. “Is there something wrong?”

“No, no.” Amelie lifted her palms to assuage Angela’s suddenly concerned demeanor. “I feel fine. No health problems at all.”

“I don’t mean just physical health, Amelie.” Angela stepped back and cast her gaze around the office for Amelie’s file. It should still be on her clipboard. She’d been looking over it not too long ago. “Are you sleeping alright? How’s your appetite?”

“They’re both fine, Doctor Ziegler. It’s nothing like that.” When Amelie looked out the window, her eyes almost glowed. “Is there a counselor I can talk to maybe?”

Angela trotted behind her desk and picked up her clipboard. “Amelie, please talk to me.” There was a slight flavor of selfishness in those words that Angela herself barely tasted. She was trained in basic counseling, but probably wasn’t the kind of professional Amelie had been asking for.

“Fine.” Amelie looked ceiling-ward. “It’s Gerard. No, it’s not. It’s me.”

Lifting the clip-board, Angela really didn’t read it at all. It was just somewhere for her to put her eyes other than on Amelie, so that Amelie didn’t feel watched. Although Angela, back in front of her desk and leaning against it, did subtly watch her. “Amelie. You can feel comfortable sharing anything with me.”

“It’s these.” Amelie lifted her wrists, hands hanging down, to show her clattering bracelets.

Angela looked up and just blinked. “The… hmm?”

Amelie shook her wrists and the bracelets clattered. The woman’s brows dipped so pathetically over her sunglow eyes, begging Angela to guess at whatever the problem was so that she wouldn’t have to say it.

“Amelie, I don’t understand.”

“He’s buying me things.” The tall woman looked at the floor, and her shoulders seemed to droop. “He buying me things and I don’t like them.”

Releasing a deep breath, Angela leaned forward over her clipboard. Her face felt warm, and she found herself concealing a small smile. It wasn’t Amelie’s fault that she was so adorable, but there she was. All Angela could say was, “Oh, Amelie.”

“I don’t know why it’s so upsetting.” Amelie turned up her wrists and looked at the bracelets like they were shackles. “He used to buy me things on special occasions and I loved them, and I’d wear them. But now, I know he’s buying them to try and make me feel better, but I don’t like them. They’re uncomfortable. I don’t know if they’re pretty or not.”

“ _You_ are pretty.” Angela spoke without moving. “They’re just decoration. Gerard knows that.”

Amelie gave an annoyed, helpless look, as though Angela had completely missed the point.

Angela stood and walked around behind her desk, grabbing her chair and wheeling it out. “Amelie, come sit down.” She pushed the chair beside her desk and turned it towards the woman.

“Doctor Ziegler. I don’t…”

“Come on.” Angela sat on her desk near the chair. “Let’s talk.”

That was, after all, what Amelie had come to do. Still, she shifted, crossing her arms over her waist and moving her weight back and forth. Finally, she did walk over and drop into the chair, though she looked at the floor instead of at Angela. “It’s just that he’s buying me things, and the things don’t help. I don’t need things or want things. I need someone to talk to. To connect to. It’s like he’s not even trying.”

Angela smiled across at Amelie. Even though Amelie’s chair was lower than Angela’s desk, the two women were at eye-level to one another. Reaching out and resting a hand on Amelie’s shoulder was easy, and this time it felt appropriate. “I’m sure he’s trying.”

“That’s worse, isn’t it?” Amelie made small, helpless gestures. “Because then he’s trying and I’m trying and it’s not working. I wasn’t even gone that long. Why doesn’t it feel like we’re not connected anymore? He’s my husband.”

“Amelie, it might take time.” Shaking her golden hair out of her face, Angela curled her fingers in Amelie’s shirt, pressing into the woman’s muscles. Just like two days ago, the woman leaned into the touch. Recalling how Amelie had relaxed previously, Angela scooted herself a few millimeters forward on her desk and moved her hand up from Amelie’s shoulder to the woman’s neck.

Amelie muttered, “It didn’t take very long for me to feel connected to you.”

A warmth rose from Angela’s chest to redden her face, just in time for Amelie to look over and see her blush. The sunglow eyes widened just slightly, glowing a bit brighter, and Angela tried to save face by turning her gaze away before Amelie could discern how much those words had affected her. She was sure she failed, however, because she did not fully look away, instead watching Amelie’s face. All the while, her fingers rested against the skin of Amelie’s neck, the touch warm. “Well. Often it’s easier for two people to connect who have never… Hmm.”

Bright eyes watched Angela. Amelie’s shoulders swelled with breath beneath Angela’s hand, and the exhale was slow and shuttering. At this, Angela’s hand tightened, and she stopped trying to look away. Amelie’s features turned a shader pink, her eyelids lowering until they half-veiled her gaze. The she reached her hand up and put it over Angela’s hand on her neck, pressing the woman’s finger’s more firmly against her skin. The touch made Angela gasp audibly, embarrassingly.

But Amelie turned away then, turning the chair so that her back was facing Angela and the woman could reach her neck more easily. “I feel like something bad is about to happen. In general.”

Taking Amelie’s movements as an invitation, Angela pressed both hands against Amelie’s skin, moving her fingers over the woman’s neck and through the base of her hairline. “What do you mean?” The redness on her face persisted, but with Amelie looking away, she more boldly touched the woman.

“It’s just a feeling I have.” Amelie leaned into Angela’s hands. “It’s foreboding. It doesn’t make any sense. I know Overwatch saved me, but it doesn’t feel like I’ve escaped for long. It feels like something worse is going to happen, and this time nobody’s going to be able to save me from it.”

“Amelie. Feelings like that, and depression, and disconnection, are all very common among survivors of traumas.” Angela responded to Amelie’s movements, pressing her fingers against the muscles that Amelie was leaning towards her. But she also enjoyed the touch for its own sake. Each time she moved her fingertips up and then back down again, she let her touch roam further. Down Amelie’s neck, outward along her shoulders, forward beneath Amelie’s jaw and down towards her collarbone. The woman’s shirt shifted easily, the collar spreading open under the slightest urging.

“Traumas. But Talon didn’t do anything to me.” Her voice was breathy. She leaned herself back towards Angela, the chair tilting back with the movement, and rested one hand over Angela’s hand.

“Are you sure, Amelie? You know you don’t need-”

“I’m sure.” Amelie tilted her face up towards the ceiling, eyes closed. Angela, leaning forward, looked directly down at Amelie’s features.

And Angela, mouth parted slightly and holding her breath, let herself look openly, closely, at Amelie’s face. “Even so. These feelings aren’t anything to be ashamed or afraid of.” Angela noticed her own tone quieting, trying to relax Amelie, to relax herself. Relaxing them together. She pulled Amelie’s chair towards her, so that the woman’s head was practically in her lap. Angela no longer restricted her touch to Amelie’s back. Fingertips perused Amelie’s jawline, the front of her neck and collarbones. The collar of her shirt spread wide as Angela ran her hands outward, and the fabric strained against the buttons. “For now you should spend time with people who make who you feel better. Stay close to people who make you feel safe.”

The hand Amelie rested on Angela’s hand dropped, so that her hands hung down behind her. She sighed and whispered, “You make me feel safe.” Her hanging hands swung back and touched Angela’s legs, fixing on them at the ankles.

Angela’s mouth parted in a silent gasp, and heat resonated out from the touch. She was warm all over, so warm that she found herself leaning her face downward towards Amelie’s.

“You make me feel safe, Angela.” Amelie’s eyes opened a sliver each, sunglow bright like dawn.

Angela’s hands ran down Amelie’s chest, pushing her shirt open, and she moved her fingers to open one of the buttons. When she unfastened it, the shirt slid off her shoulders, down her chest, displaying the perfect pale skin from her collarbones to the lacy top of her bra. Amelie’s hands tightened on Angela’s ankles, and Angela lifted her legs, putting her feet on the armrests of the chair so that her knees were against the skin of Amelie’s shoulders, so that Amelie was hugging her calves.

Amelie stared. “Angela.” Her hands slid up Angela’s calves, over her knees. Her fingers spread over Angela’s thighs and pushed her dress up her legs.

Golden hair fell between their faces as Angela leaned down to Amelie, so that their noses were only millimeters apart. The heat of their bodies and breath, the light of Amelie’s gaze and Angela’s hair, surrounded their faces. Angela paused, struggling to breathe against the tightness in her chest. “Amelie. Is this okay?”

Amelie’s lips moved, opening, her face lifting subtly towards Angela’s in seeming anticipation. Her hands pushed further along Angela’s thighs, beneath her dress, until they found the line of Angela’s hips, and there her fingertips curled. “You’re so warm.”

Angela ran one hand over Amelie’s bra, and down along her belly, feeling the tight muscles stretched magnificently by Amelie’s backward lean. Her other hand cradled Amelie’s jaw, keeping their faces close. “Is this okay?” She needed the woman’s permission. She couldn’t just… “Can I do this, Amelie? Can I help you feel better?”

“You do make me feel better.”

That was close enough. Angela leaned forward, her lips opening, her eyes closing.

And suddenly Amelie wasn’t there anymore. The warmth receded in an instant of whirling air, Angela’s hair shivering in front of her face. She could vaguely feel Amelie’s hands slide off of her thighs, the tall woman’s body slide out from beneath her, but mostly she just felt the chill that was left when the warmth went away. Her legs and hands were cold, and a chill washed over her face. Her lips, so ready for heat and the touch of another’s lips, close over open air. In the veil of her golden hair, Angela was suddenly alone.

She snapped her gaze up, dazed as though she’d been suffocating and was only just then permitted to breathe. Amelie stood in front of the chair, back to Angela, sunglow eyes turned away, buttoning her shirt and fixing the collar. The long ponytail, the thin shaft of night, hung between them.

Angela’s mouth hung open, her shoulders rising and falling as she tried to catch her breath and understand what had just happened. “A-… Amelie?”

“I need to leave.” The woman’s voice was far from empty. It was burdened with the same worry and concern she’d carried with her, only tripled. Her tone trembled, just like she’d narrowly dodged out of some accident. “Thank you for… the talk.”

“Wait.” Angela tried to shake her golden hair out of her face, but she felt dizzy. “Amelie, I’m sorry. Let’s talk about… what just…”

“Au revoir, Angela.” Without even looking back, Amelie turned and rushed towards the door of the office, knocking over piles of disordered paperwork on her way. She didn’t even stop for those. The woman brushed at her face on her way out.

“Amelie, wait!” Angela felt paralyzed. She was frozen, sitting on her desk with her feet on the armrests of the chair in front of her, her dress pushed up around her hips, head bent forward, arms hanging in front of her. “I’m sorry, Amelie! Es duet mr leid!”

There was no answer. The woman was gone, leaving only the open door and an office full of ruined paperwork that Angela was still going to have to do. Angela didn’t see the office, however. She looked back down at the chair in front of her, where Amelie had been moments ago, remembering the warmth of the woman, the look in her eyes, the way her own body had roiled with heat and need. Angela lifted a hand and pressed it against her lips, trying to stave off their maddened hunger for another woman’s mouth. Angela shivered. “Oh my god.” She put her hands over her head and curled herself over her knees. Tears welled up like a sprung leak, and she shut her eyes against them. “Oh my god, what did I do? What is wrong with me? Ich ha chalt. Ich ha chalt.”


	3. Blank Pages

Surrendering to one’s mistakes never got anything done. Weeping over an empty chair with overdue paperwork spread unsorted over her desk and the floor of her office certainly had been a humiliating low in Angela Ziegler’s life, but she had eventually pushed her dress back down her legs, cleaned the tears from her eyes and caught her breath. Angela had collected her paperwork into piles and sorted them. Occasionally, her gaze had swept towards the windows, and she’d passed her fingers over her lips thinking, imagining, wondering about what almost…

But Angela was a grown woman with a career, and Amelie Lacroix was a married woman. And Angela had reclaimed her wandering thoughts, reigning them back to the work that she’d allowed to accrue.

Of course she hadn’t been able to shuffle it all away in a single day, but her formerly free evening had its uses. Once she had her work diminished to a single briefcase-full of files, she’d made the journey back to the suite where she was living for the time. While Angela’s typical haunt was in Switzerland, she nested at the Overwatch research facilities frequently enough to keep a clean home here. The walkway was pleasant and gardened, thin concrete paths with a few small steps. The cool evening air kept her awake and modestly cheerful, the breeze etching away at her lingering humiliation as the last of the sunset began to fade away to night.

Then there would be no more sunlight to remind her of Amelie Lacroix’s eyes. How would she last if every open window and sunny day reminded her of the woman? How did Gerard manage it? Well, he saw her every night of course, and they slept skin-to-skin. Angela would never have that privilege, not even so much as to touch the woman’s neck again, to pet her fingers through her hair. Angela licked the back of her teeth and thought about the taste of a kiss that she would never know. The taste that Gerard likely enjoyed aplenty.

Angela stopped in front of her door and stomped one foot, glaring at her reflection in the decorative glass panel. “Augh. And now your jealous, Mercy? Grow up!” She pushed the door open and stepped inside, pausing for just a moment to fix her hair in the reflection, before closing the door behind her.

By then it was dark outside. She turned on the lights throughout her suite and spread her paperwork out over the glass-top table in her dining room, near the large glass doors of her patio overlooking the lights of the city. When Angela stacked her paperwork, she took one particular pile and placed it foremost, and then took the top form from it and put in front of herself. A blank memo to a local colleague. The one piece of paperwork she should have filled out first and the last one she wanted to. What Angela had done with Amelie — to Amelie — that day was completely unethical, damaging to Amelie’s emotional state and compromising Angela’s professional standing. And Angela was going to have to tattle on herself and face the humiliation.

Angela set a pen next to the paper and stood in front of her table, staring down at them, at the blank paper and the straight lines begging for her confession. She stared for some time, and then stepped away, vanishing into the next room where she turned on her stereo. It began to play an eclectic album of strings and piano arrangements of contemporary Swiss music in a classic style. Angela returned to the table and stared down at the blank page.

She blinked, and then tried outloud. “Today I, Doctor Ziegler, attempted to render counseling to a patient of mine, one Amelie Lacroix, who is recovering from a traumatic experience. However, I unwisely and without foresight, incidentally abused my position of trust to inadvertently… accidentally… as if I didn’t do it on purpose…”

Angela stepped away from the table and went to the kitchen. She turned the volume of her stereo up with a remote, and then returned to the table with a glass of Malvasia. She pulled out a chair as though she was about to sit down, but remained standing. She didn’t drink her wine. She put it down, inhaled, and then exhaled. “Today I, Doctor Angela Ziegler, met with an emotionally compromised patient and almost made out with her. Wait. I wasn’t going to go that far… Were we? We almost… It was nearly a kiss.” She put her fingers to her lips and muttered, “We touched. She touched me back. Her hands… Oh, no, Mercy. Stop.”

She walked away from the table. She turned up her stereo again, so that she could hear it from the bath. When she returned to the table an hour later, she wore a thin robe and large slippers. Her golden hair shone with moisture from the shower, and was especially unruly from having been blow-dried. It dangled in shimmering clumps at all angles from her head, and as she stood looking down at the paperwork, she held it out of her face. Her blue eyes and round features glared down and she said aggressively, “Gerard Lacroix, I desire your wife.” Finally, she collapsed into the chair she’d pulled out earlier and reached for her wine. “Oh, Mercy, you are in trouble.” She sipped at the Malvasia, but it had gone warm.

Someone knocked on the suite’s door.

Angela started and looked at the clock. It was nearing midnight, far too late for a regular visitor. Was this something to do with Overwatch? If there was a problem, wouldn’t they call her instead of taking the time to come over for a chat?

Had someone found out what she’d done with Amelie?

Angela took a deep, steadying breath, and set the glass of wine on the table. She looked at the blank memo she had not yet written, the unused pen. If someone found out she’d taken advantage of her position of trust to engage in an intimate encounter with one of her most vulnerable patients, they’d certainly act on it immediately. They would be right to do so. It could ruin her as a doctor, as a member of Overwatch, as a respectable woman, as a member of society. Angela gave the blank memo a fearful glare, as though it were the very face of accusation. She had inherited her grandmother’s Swedish lips, and they pursed like floodgates slamming shut, rolling as a press to iron flat her breath and flare her nostrils.

Angela would endure whatever she deserved, but she needed to make sure that Amelie suffered not a moment of humiliation.

Rising from her chair and walking to the door, Angela turned the volume down on the stereo and slipped the remote into the pocket of her robe. This recalled to her just how thin her robe was, white silk sticking to what moisture was left from her bath, outlining her hips and legs and chest. She crossed her arms over her chest modestly and pulled the robe away from her legs so it hung at least somewhat neutrally. Then she opened the door.

A greasy man in a cowboy hat leaned forward in the night. “Howdy, Angy.” His accent was marred by the cigar in his mouth. His stubble-laden chin ground on it like a cow chewing grass.

Angela recoiled, her nose curling at the stink of the cigar that was suddenly wafting into her apartment. “Wha-? Jesse McCree, what are you doing here?”

“H’well.” He leaned one arm on her doorframe and fixed his opposite thumb behind his enormous belt buckle. “I was just coming by to pick up this fancy new gun from Torbjorn’s workshop, but apparently he misplaced it, so I got some free time. And I thought, hey, might as well swing in and say howdy to the classiest lady they got around here.” His eyes roamed her shape. “Y’lookin fine, Angy.”

“You look terrible.” Angela pinched her nose and waved at the cigar smoke. “And you smell like… whiskey and campfires.”

“And you smell like… Wait.” McCree’s eyes went skyward as though he were having profound thoughts. Then he leaned further forward. “Is it creepy for a guy to tell a lady what she smells like?”

“Yes, it is.”

“But why can you say what I smell like but I can’t say what you smell like?”

“Go away.” Angela slammed the door, not minding the resistance of the cowboy’s face, nor the cursing, coughing sounds he made that sounded almost like he’d been forced to swallow his cigar. Actually, she smiled at those a bit.

After a moment of wheezing, McCree’s muffled, grating voice coughed, “H’okay, Angy. You uh… Hey! We’ll talk later.”

Angela turned off the porch light and spun back to her apartment. She pulled the stereo remote from her pocket, turned the volume back up, and then put it back. She returned to her table, to her glass of lukewarm Malvasia, and sat down in front of the blank memo. Against the fear she’d just felt that someone might be at her door to tell her that her career and life as a member of Overwatch was over, the pen and the piece of blank paper seemed suddenly harmless. She plucked the pen, clicked it open, and turned it point-down to begin writing before any hesitation could sink in.

“Today I, Doctor Ziegler, met with a patient, Amelie Lacroix, who showed no physical symptoms but was in need of counseling. I am not a professional counselor, but I chose to help her anyway, as she had been my patient previously. This was not a wise decision. I…” The pen froze in her hand, and she glared at it. No, it wasn’t the pen, and it wasn’t the paper. The words were the problem. The words to describe what she’d done. Angela didn’t want to write them, to commit them like this. But she needed to. She needed to. Angela closed her eyes, and breathed. She took the stereo remote from her pocket and turned off the music. She breathed, and sat, and waited, and let things be still. She felt her hair over her face, moist at the roots, her thin robe over her body and the cool air of her apartment. She was still.

Angela opened her eyes and wrote. “I am an idiot, and I made a mistake. Amelie is an unthinkably beautiful woman, and everything about me that has ever been reasonable or controlled fell apart without any prompting from her. She was vulnerable to me, and I took advantage of her trust. I-”

Another knock at the door shocked Angela, and her startled hand drew an incongruous line across the page. She bit her teeth and wrinkled her features in fustration, clicking shut the pen and slamming it down. “’We’ll talk later’ is not now, cowboy.” She took the bottle of wine in hand, unsure if she was going to throw it at him or beat him to death with it. Stomping fast to the door, Angela threw it open and barked, “Do you know what time it is?”

The cowboy she’d expected to see was in fact who she found, though this time he stood in the middle of the walkway with his hands clasped in front of him, appearing far more humble. “Aw, yeah, I know Angy, but you’re still awake and I just-”

“I’m working!”

“Aw, Angy, be sweet.”

“Don’t you ‘be sweet’ me!” She threw the bottle of wine at him. “Go get drunk and pass out someplace.”

McCree grunted and caught the bottle, flinching away from a significant amount of wine that spilled over his arms and chest. Then he looked at it remorsefully. “Aw, Angy, you know I don’t drink this fancy stuff.”

“Then go help Torbjorn find his missing gun!”

“But he doesn’t let anybody else touch his stuff!” McCree gestured helplessly. He took his hat off and held it over his heart, readying to deliver what he likely thought was a swoon-worthy monologue.

It was then that Angela noticed the figure coming up the walk far behind him, tall and thin, dressed in dark pants and shirt, with a great arch of black hair curling in the breeze behind her. Sunglow eyes not quite as bright in the dark, as she stepped into the light of a nearby lamp and looked up, it was like a flash of sunlight. Amelie Lacroix’s eyes widened at the sight of the cowboy on Angela’s doorstep, and then looked past him, and her eyes widened further.

Angela stopped breathing and bundled her limbs around herself, suddenly aware of how the wind pushed her thin robe against her body, of how wild her hair looked. Why was Amelie here, now? After what had happened between them that day? The very question of it made Angela’s skin turn pink from her chest to her face.

Amelie’s distant hesitation was only momentary. She averted her gaze, and pushed her bangs behind her ears, and touched her neck. And then she began forward again, and that oncoming, shadowy figure was the most terrifying and exciting thing Angela had ever seen.

The cowboy was talking. “Angy, I promise you, if you give me a chance to show ya, you’ll see I got everything you can want in a person. I can have the softest voice, and the softest touch, and I can be real gentle and careful, and I’ll look at you just right, and I can make ya feel real warm in all the best ways.”

Feeling Amelie’s approach like a missile, wanting desperately for McCree to be gone, Angela turned her gaze on him like a weapon and snapped, “Somebody already made me feel like that today.”

McCree’s head whipped back. “What? Someone’s stealing your heart from me, Angy?”

Amelie stopped mid-step ten meters away, and her voice squeaked loud in the night breeze. “What!”

The cowboy turned around, seeing Amelie for the first time. “… What?” And the two locked bewildered eyes.

“Ah… Oh, no.” Angela brought her hands to her face as though she’d only just heard her own words. Both McCree and Amelie looked at Angela then, and Angela felt like fire was pouring at her from their faces. Heat shot through her entire body and her face turned bright red.

McCree looked at the bottle of wine in his hands. “Uh, Angy. If you were expecting someone, you could’ve just said.”

Angela laughed. She didn’t know why. Terror clamped her hands over her mouth, but she couldn’t stop the strange, mortified snicker that burst from her mouth and grew quickly into a chitter, and then she was just laughing so loud that her shoulders shook and she could barely breathe. She fell against the doorframe and hid her face, seeing McCree and the Amelie stare at her as though she’d gone mad, and she just laughed louder at nothing. She was crying, but she was laughing, and she was blushing so intensely that she felt her face was going to liquefy. “Oh, god, I’m going to die!”

Amelie trotted forward. “Angela?”

The cowboy tried, too. “You okay, Angy?”

“No, no, I’m dying! Ahah, I’m dead!” And Angela, laughing, ducked inside and slammed the door behind her, and then she collapsed against it and began to cry in earnest. She’d never sobbed and laughed at the same time, but here it was. She fell hard onto her haunches, slammed the back of her head against the door, and pulled her knees to her chest. She tried to hold herself like this and either stop crying or stop laughing, because she couldn’t breathe and she was making raucous hiccuping, choking sounds that had to be audible through the door and it was humiliating to think about. Angela just wanted to stop humiliating herself, to have some kind of control over herself, but she couldn’t even manage to breathe. She slid sideways onto the tile, laying against the door, and curled up on herself.

 

* * *

 

 

The cowboy turned on Amelie. They were strangers to one another, so the best he could do was to gesture broadly, hat in one hand and half-spilled bottle of wine in the other. “I didn’t do nothing. I don’t know why she’s freaking out.”

Amelie looked him over with an eye of judgment. “Are you two in a relationship?”

He chuckled. “Not yet, but, y’know.”

Amelie glared.

“Eh, no.” The cowboy shook his head. He put his hat back on and tipped it towards Amelie. “No we are not, ma’am. Still, I didn’t do anything to make a lady that upset. Not my style.”

Rolling her eyes, Amelie walked around him, keeping significant distance between them. “It’s my fault. You should go.”

“Hey, same question, though. Are you two-”

“Bon soir, cowboy.”

“Ouch. Strike three. Looks like I’m out.” The cowboy tucked the bottle of wine under one arm and turned away, taking lazy, wide steps down the walkway. His boots clicked obnoxiously. Amelie watched the man mosey off into the evening, wary of any parting glances or dallying on his part, but he did seem to have really accepted his defeat. He kept walking until he was lost in the shadows of night, down the poorly lit garden pathways.


	4. There is a Wind

Angela's body pressed down on the remote in her pocket, and the music started playing from her radio. She lay still with her back against the door, her legs curled up in front of her. She wasn't crying or laughing anymore, just staring at the polished black side of the coffee table where she could see her own darkened reflection. Angela locked eyes with herself through the puffy eyelids and curtains of frazzled blond hair. The floor was cold and wet against her cheek. Drops of spilled Malvasia glistened on the tile floor in front of her. The yellow lamps that lit the room seemed so pathetically dim against the black night outside every window. They were so dim, compared to Amelie's eyes.

She pouted at her reflection, "You've such grace, Mercy," and sat herself up. She brushed at the lines of tears on her face and sniffled, trying not to imagine what had transpired on the other side of her door when she'd slammed it on Amelie and Jesse. The woman in the reflection was practically naked in her thin bathrobe. Pulling her legs to her chest didn't help that feeling. The remembered sensations of Amelie's fingertips ghosted up her legs, from her ankles to her hips, and Angela shivered against the unbidden heat that it summoned inside of her.

That sensation. Angela hadn't wept over her humiliation, but over the words she had said. Someone had made her feel that way. She'd felt the way for the first time in… how long? Ever? How had Angela lost control so dramatically? Mere days ago she had been completely composed, professional, secure, and now… How it had happened?

It hadn't just happened. This wasn't just fate. This was something that she had done. Angela had taken the actions that had lead her here. And even at this low point, she knew it would fall to her take the actions that made this right. She took a deep breath and felt unable to hold it. She looked at her fingers and couldn't feel them. Her legs were so weak in front of her that she wasn't sure how she could stand, but she knew she _would_ stand. And she did.

Angela stood with her back to the door and curled her toes in her slippers. She hugged herself tightly, so that she could feel the strength in her arms, so that when she inhaled she felt her chest swell. Then she straightened out her robe, fixed the silk rope holding it about her waist, and pushed her unruly golden hair back behind her shoulders. If all she could manage was the frail dignity of humiliation, then she would make do with it.

The click of knuckles upon the door behind her was like a chisel breaking what was left of Angela's shell. The voice that came after — Amelie's voice — was a warm wind through the cracks. "Angela?"

Angela snapped around to face the door, seeing just glass and the reflection of her own shocked features. She stared at herself, seeing in her eyes the fear of Amelie's power to break her down, seeing in her parted lips the want for it to happen. "Amelie." Angela's voice came out as a distressed, quiet croak. She lifted her shoulders and bit down on her teeth, nostrils flaring with breath. She spoke louder to make herself heard through the door. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to talk." Amelie's voice was composed and careful, calling modestly into Angela's sanctum. It was what Angela's voice should have been.

Angela put a hand against the door, leaning on it, and shook her head. "You shouldn't be here. This is backwards!"

A modest thud on the door made Angela imagine Amelie pressing herself against it. "What are you talking about?"

"I shouldn't be the one…" That was right. Angela shouldn't be the one feeling out of control. She shouldn't be the one hiding. But that wasn't the worst part. "Amelie, what I did to you today was unacceptable. You should go home and speak with your husband."

"What _we_ did, Angela. Vous étiez au chaud! Gerard's house is cold."

Closing her eyes tight, Angela bent her head toward the door as though ducking against a fierce wind. "It will feel better with time, Amelie, I promise. We will find a counselor to help."

"Angela, please open the door. It's cold."

The thought of opening the door, of letting Amelie's powerful voice rush over her skin, of letting the warmth of those eyes shine on her, terrified Angela. The ghosts of those sensations were already on her, sliding over her skin with promise. "Amelie, you could go to the hospital and speak with someone."

"No I can't, Angela." Amelie's voice grew louder and more urgent. "Please, Angela, it's dark. Please."

Angela's eyes snapped to the switch for the porch light, something she'd turned off to try and chase Jesse away. The area outside of her suite would be lost in blackness now. The gardens and their narrow walkways, so warm and green in the day, would be a vast, wide darkness in the night, interrupted only by small lamps that served more to remind one how dark it was. It was night when Amelie had been taken from Gerard's house, from a place so like this. Amelie had walked that darkness to get here, steps composed but hurried, afraid perhaps to show fear that she might be taken again. And now she was here, pressed to the wall of that void, begging at the doorway that would let her escape it.

Angela bolted away from the door and spun so quick that one elbow cracked against the glass, but she barely felt it. Her fingers were numb on the lock and the doorknob, and for a strange moment she watched her normally dexterous fingers grasping so desperately at the lock that she couldn't make it function. Then it clicked and the knob turned, and the door swung open. Amelie Lacroix rushed into the suite like a gust of wind, her clothes and hair so dark it seemed to cling to her. Angela slammed the door shut behind her.

Amelie stood in a bent, bewildered state. She leaned with her hands on her thighs, catching her breath, shoulders trembling. Her bangs hung forward and eclipsed the sunlight of her eyes, so that the image of her was that of a woman who had escaped the night, colored by it and crumbling with its weight. She exhaled a small, shaking breath. "Merci."

"Oh, Amelie." Angela turned and put one arm over the woman's shaking shoulders, hands fixing on her arms. "I'm so sorry. I wasn't listening closely enough." Amelie leaned into Angela's touch, her weight falling against the shorter woman so suddenly that she nearly knocked Angela off-balance. To keep Amelie from falling, Angela wrapped both arms around the woman. "I'm sorry."

"J'ai peur." One hand laying across Angela's arm, the other grasped at the folds of her robe. Amelie lifted her bright eyes toward Angela. "I feel safe with you."

Staring into those eyes, Angela froze. Her golden hair fell around them, framing their faces, seeming to magnify the sunlight of Amelie's eyes. Her robe was nothing. She felt naked holding Amelie's body, the woman warm against her bare skin. She could feel Amelie's chest and arms move with her breath, could feel the warmth of the breath as a wind on her chest and neck and face. Where Amelie held the robe, her fingers brush Angela's chest. It was like holding the sun. She could feel her skin burning, her lungs searing as she breathed in Amelie's warmth, her blood glowing hot inside of her body. They were so warm together that the air around them suddenly felt cold. The light of Amelie's face was so bright that the world around them seemed dark by comparison.

Angela couldn't even think to move. She heard herself gasping and noticed the tightness in her throat and chest. Her legs were weak, yet still she held Amelie up. Swallowing against these sensations, Angela stared at Amelie's eyes, her subtly parted lips. Amelie hung still and waited in the warmth of their touch. She waited for Angela, while Angela grasped desperately for one last ounce of self-control, whispering almost soundlessly, "I should get dressed."

Amelie took hold of Angela's robe with both hands now, pulling the woman down, herself upward, their faces closer. "Ne devrait pas."

"No, I shouldn't." Angela's hands ran down Amelie's body, joining behind her back, pulling the woman up as Amelie pulled her down. The heat in her face increased impossibly as Amelie's eyes came near, sharpening as her eyelids fell, as their foreheads touched, as Amelie's nose pressed beside her own. Their breaths stirred one another. Angela's mouth parted near Amelie's, feeling Amelie's soft lower lip slid between her own lips. The kiss was slow, the power of its heat melting through Angela over long seconds. She tasted Amelie's lipstick, the fullness of her lips, the power of Amelie's kiss on her own. She pressed her teeth against curve of Amelie's lip, wanting to kiss her more deeply, afraid to do so, just letting the tip of her tongue brush her skin. The heat melted through Angela's neck, down her chest to warm springs where Amelie's knuckles touched her skin. Angela pulled their hips together, a scintillating heat deep in her belly radiating to where their bodies touch, through the muscles in her thighs, weakening her. She grew hotter and weaker, held Amelie closer and kissed her longer, weakened further and drew her closer, so that she might press through the smooth fabric of Amelie's clothes to touch her skin.

In a sudden and unexpected moment, Angela finally grew too weak, or too hot. In the flash of fire that shot through her body and made it impossible to breathe, Angela almost missed the feeling of her legs giving out. Amelie's weight bore down on her and the two fell together, their embrace broken as they landed on the tile floor. Angela's limp legs curled under her for a moment and then stretched out as she fell on her back, fire still crackling on her lips and her skin Amelie had touched her. Struggling to catch her breath, Angela's gaze lingered on the ceiling and then fell, searching.

Amelie had landed on her knees. Angela's gaze found Amelie in a stunned state, with one hand on the ground and her other pressed to her mouth. Those bright eyes, however, looked over Angela's body. Either the robe had fallen open or Amelie had pulled it open during their embrace, but Angela lay naked in front of Amelie, gasping for breath, bright red and staring fixedly. Before Angela could feel any humiliation, Amelie's gaze rose to her face. Those sunglow eyes were so bright, even though they were lidded with hunger, focus and intent. Amelie's lips closed over the tip of her tongue, her shoulders rising with breath.

Angela lifted herself on her elbows, bending her knees to put her feet flat against the floor. Amelie's eyes fell to watch the movement of Angela's legs, and Angela felt the fire surge inside her again. She gasped against that heat, loudly enough that it drew Amelie's eyes back to her face. The light of Amelie's gaze was so enthralling that this only made the heat worse, and Angela could barely manage to breathe out, "Amelie. We should-"

"D'abord." Amelie rolled forward on her knees, positioning her body over Angela's. One of Amelie's hands pressed to the ground next to Angela's shoulder for support. Her other hand touched Angela's side, palm to hip.

Shivering at the sensation of that touch, Angela pressed her tongue against her teeth. Her hands rose to Amelie's waist, fingers curling in the fabric of her shirt. She took desperately fast, shallow breaths, feeling light-headed. "Amelie."

Amelie's full lips sharpened at the corners, her narrow eyes bright with light. "Nous goûtons cela." Her body lowered, her face fell, her lips pressed down on Angela's lips and all Angela could do was open her lips to accept the kiss.

The heat was so strong, her muscles so weak, that it seemed all she could do was feel the press of Amelie upon her. Skin and mouth, breath and tongue, the weight of her body and the movement of her hand on her hip, became for a moment the only thing Angela knew of the world. Even the motions of her own hands were distantly felt as she lifted Amelie's shirt and ran her palms over Amelie's back, the other woman's cool skin more vivid than her own. She gasped for breath around Amelie's kiss, lifted her hips into the press of Amelie's hand as it roved over her hip and long her thigh.

Amelie let her weight press down, freeing one hand to lay over Angela's cheek as she broke the kiss. "Tu me fais sentir belle." She kissed a line along Angela's jaw to her neck. "Sens chaud." Her lips moved over Angela's collar-bone to the middle of her chest, breath hot as Angela struggled to breathe. She kissed a line down her chest. "Sens en sécurité."

Angela's hands reaching high enough under Amelie's shirt to reach her bra, the surgeon's fingers moved with purposeful precision to release it. Just as it released with a satisfying pop, another sound came from elsewhere in the suite. Angela had almost forgotten the sound of the stereo playing music until that music gave way to a shrill sound, loud with the force of an alarm. Angela flinched at the sound, though Amelie didn't pause at all. As Angela cast her gaze toward the heart of the suite, Amelie's lips moved toward Angela's breast and her hand pressed at the sensitive ligaments high on Angela's inner thigh, urging her legs to spread further.

Angela acquiesced to that command, gasping even as she took her hands out of Amelie's shirt to prop herself up on her elbows. "Amelie. It's an Overwatch alert."

Hands moving together now, one pressing on each of Angela's thighs, Amelie turned her brilliant eyes up and spoke with her lips against Angela's skin. "N'y comptez pas."

"I _want_ to ignore it." Angela almost meant that as surrender, watching Amelie's eyes, feeling her breath and the touch of her fingertips. But instead she moved one hand to Amelie's face, lifting it from her body. Amelie obliged with an audibly disappointed huff, leaning her cheek into Angela's hand. As Angela pulled her hips away from Amelie's hands and gathered her feet beneath her, she leaned forward to kiss Amelie, with a deep and certain confidence that she wanted Amelie to feel. Angela held the kiss for a second before pulling away, speaking beneath the continuing alarm. "Verzweifelt, Amelie. But please, let me just check." Angela drew away to stand.

Amelie lay her fingers over Angela's hand on her face, sunglow eyes shaded by low eyelids. "Écoutez-moi. Is that the sound you heard when Talon took me from Gerard?"

Angela stopped still where she was, half-standing, half-turned away, blue eyes locked on Amelie's.

"It's a sound that signals loss, isn't it?"

Staring, breathing, Angela felt frozen, shocked still. Amelie's hand pinned her in place not just physically. She couldn't think. She felt the press of Amelie's fingers, the curve of Amelie's cheek, the warmth of her breath and her gaze. Angela stood in silence as the alarm blared on, shouting for her attention but powerless against the simple, silent pull of Amelie's eyes, of her pursed lips, of her eyelashes and the lines of her neck and the lingering taste of her kiss. Angela's fingertips curled against Amelie's face. Her thumb moved to feel the shape of Amelie's chin. Her held breath exhaled and she heard herself say, "I'm not going to go anywhere, Amelie. I'm going to stay with you tonight, I promise." The weight of those unplanned words settled over her as soon as she'd spoken them. If Overwatch was needed and Mercy did not respond, who would suffer because of that?

But Amelie closed her eyes, and her tensed shoulders fell. She exhaled her fear and leaned her face into Angela's hand, and all the weight of those words was gone. Amelie had needed those words, that security. No matter what that call was about, Amelie needed her tonight.

Angela took a deep breath to break the stillness of her lungs and straightened her back. She took her hand from Amelie's face, instead taking Amelie's hand in both of hers, and urged the woman to stand. "Come. I need to at least check what the alarm is."

Amelie rose, taking her own settling breath as she did so. "And turn off that sound? Parfait." The redness in her cheeks remained as her lidded eyes looked down on Angela's bare shoulders, the robe having fallen down to hang open from her elbows.

The robe was mere decoration at this point, but Angela did nothing to cover herself. She turned away, her skin bright with excitement, feeling the warmth of Amelie's eyes on her, and drew the woman along with her. They walked between the broad sofa and glass table in Angela's sitting room, to the stereo where Angela lifted a personal tablet. The music the tablet had been transmitting to the stereo had been replaced by the shrill sound of the Overwatch alert that now shown bright on the face of the tablet. Once it was in her hand, Angela pulled Amelie a step closer and then took a step back herself, so that she pressed against Amelie. It was a natural, intimate movement, and the way Amelie put her arms around her waist felt right to her. Angela leaned her head against Amelie's chest and entered various commands into the tablet to log in as Mercy and check the details of the alert.

As the details appeared on the screen, Angela's brow raised and her mouth fell open with a silent, "Oh."

Amelie, looking over her shoulder, stiffened with a sharp breath and broke away from Angela. She paced away and pressed her palm to her forehead, groaning, "Merde. Gerard must have…"

"Don't worry." Angela paced in a different direction, walking a purposeful arc toward a more open part of the sitting room. "The alert is an overreaction on his part, but it's understandable given your previous disappearance. I can call it off and let everyone know that you're with me."

"At your apartment in the middle of the night." Amelie's pacing took her out of the sitting room, but her distress was easily audible from the kitchen. "Everyone will think I'm-"

"With your _doctor_ , Amelie." Angela's fingers moved deftly over the tablet to enter a message to Overwatch's dispatch center to cancel the alert. She followed after Amelie. "With Mercy, if you like. There's nothing wrong with needing help and comfort. Everyone will understand."

"Nothing is wrong with any part of this? Are you sure?"

Angela's brow creased, knowing what Amelie meant, knowing what she herself thought about it. She walked naked after Amelie, with the warmth of her touch and taste of her kiss lingering. "There's nothing wrong with what you've done." She stepped into the kitchen and lifted her gaze to find Amelie standing at the dining table, looking down at the paperwork that Angela had brought home with her.

Amelie's fingers fell on one piece of paper in particular, the half-written memo that Angela had meant to be her confession regarding what had happened earlier that day. "Angela." Amelie turned the paper toward her, and the words written there and the sens of failure that had inspired them all recalled themselves to Angela in an instant. "Are you sure?"

Stopping where she stood, Angela stared at the paper and at Amelie's fingers on that paper. Her gaze lifted to Amelie's eyes, the sun there, the glow that had shone on Angela's nakedness with such unexpected lust. Now those eyes stared with a strange, unreadable medley of expression, something that might be worry, or fear, or concern. As bright and beautiful as those eyes could be, Angela suddenly felt uncomfortable under their gaze. But Angela knew that wasn't Amelie's fault. It was her own.

"I'm sorry." Angela set the tablet aside. She lifted her robe back onto her shoulders and pulled it closed in front of her, feeling like she was hiding herself from the sun. But maybe she'd gotten lost in that light. "We need to talk about this, Amelie. Before anything else happens."

Amelie's gaze fell. She looked down at herself, her wrinkled shirt disordered and bra unfastened by Angela's hands. Amelie pulled at just the bottom of her shirt to straighten those creases, as though afraid to move her hands too much. The hand on the memo moved aside, sliding along the table. Absently, her fingertips found Angela's forgotten glass of Malvasia. She stared at it, her large lips pressed firmly against one another. She clicked a fingernail against the side of the glass and watched the wine ripple.


End file.
